Dig the Crazy
by bluedragon03
Summary: AU where Hiyori's soul separating from her body causes a deteriorating mental condition and descent into madness and she never gains control over the ability. Inspired by the song "Dig the Crazy" by Faith Marie


It started with a not unpleasant tingling in her tail. She mentioned it to Yato only because he'd stressed the delicate nature of her condition. He asked around but no one seemed to have answers. Her condition was so rare, unique. They decided it was best she try to remain in her body as much as possible, but she had no control over when her body separated from her soul, so that was difficult.

Her friends started telling her she was acting weird but she disagreed. She was just picking up on a few idiosyncrasies from her far shore friends. They were harmless quirks.

Something inside of her changed after being sealed in the cave in Takamagahara, even she noticed. Kazuma had warned that too much time outside her body would kill her, but not that it would cause _this_. By the time she'd gotten back home, her cord had been blurred around the edges, but it was fine again the next time she lost her body. The tingling was stronger, but there was nothing she could do about that now.

Occasionally she was overcome by dizzy spells accompanied with an altered sense of reality. She would cling to Yato for support if he was nearby, asking him to hold onto her until the world stopped spinning. On occasions when Yato wasn't near, she would stagger, off-kilter, into alleyways and converse quietly with the ayakashi until she was feeling better.

She never thought to be concerned when their conversations started making sense.

Slowly she began being plagued by strange and often disturbing dreams where she whispered with many voices to passersby. She confided in Yato the dreams, but not the sense of belonging they brought her. He couldn't rule out a connection to her condition, but also couldn't confirm it. It couldn't be healthy for her soul to spend so much time outside her body, but she steadfastly refused to try fixing it by severing her ties with Yato. She still wanted to be near him.

For the most part, Yato and Yukine determined to monitor her condition. They noted the way her laughter sometimes peeled from her throat with a certain unhinged lilting, but that was easily dismissed.

Time moved on and Hiyori's mental state continued to deteriorate, taking a sharp downturn after her cord was damaged during the hospital incident. Now her lilting unhinged laughter was paired with a propensity for getting into dangerous situations and barely getting out alive. Yato had thought this was remedied with a harsh scolding and a resolution to watch her even closer. He recruited Bishamon and Kazuma to help and started to think that maybe they had the condition under control.

But they didn't know the storm beneath the surface.

Hiyori passed in and out of clarity, sometimes caught up in what she'd taken to calling her 'derangement', sometimes terrified of the things she heard in her own mind.

Frequently her mind would race down dangerous paths at breakneck speeds and she would find herself enjoying the ride, only to smash into reality so hard it would take her breath away. In those moments she would look to Yato and ask, frightened, what was happening to her.

No longer did anyone think that severing her ties was the best option. Her cord had been damaged; her soul was scarred. What if they severed her ties and it didn't work, and she was left then to her derangement and no one she trusted to help her? No, it was best her friends remained to protect Hiyori from herself.

Yato was haunted by the knowing smirk his father had worn as Yato and Yukine shepherded Hiyori away from him. They'd found her draped over Fujisaki during Yato's daily check-in. Hiyori remained wholly unrepentant for challenging him.

The more time Hiyori spent in this foggy place of madness the more she started to call it home. It wasn't so bad here, Yato was just overreacting. She was having fun, after all.

Once Yato yanked her out of a hoard of ayakashi where she'd been dancing unsteadily, uncaring of the danger around her. An ayakashi's teeth snapped closed a hair's breadth away from her tail and she spun on, unbothered, happy to rile the phantoms. Yato lost his temper. His furious shouting after he'd slain the hoard seemed to snap her out of her fog. She clung, terrified, to him as her damaged soul clashed against the confines of her sanity. She whispered something that disturbed Yato more deeply than he ever would have admitted to her, frightened as she already was.

"I'm slipping away."


End file.
